“One moment, Mr. Gaunt,” said Falls. “You’re upset, I fancy, not so much by the knowledge that Questing died very horridly, as by the fear that you yourself might be implicated.”
“I won’t have this!” cried Gaunt, and sprang to his feet. “I resent this, bitterly.”
“Do sit down. You see,” said Mr. Falls looking amiably about him, “in spite of ourselves we are becoming the orthodox muster of suspects. Here is Mr. Gaunt who quarrelled with Mr. Questing because Mr. Questing used his name as an advertisement, and because he pretended he was the author of a gift that Mr. Gaunt himself had made.”
Barbara started galvanically. Gaunt began to accuse Dikon. “So I’ve got you to thank — ”
“No,” said Falls. “My dear Gaunt, who but you could have made this gift? A quotation from Shakespeare on the card? Written by the shop assistant? You see I have heard all about it. And, if that was not enough, your very expressive face betrayed you most completely last night, when Questing spoke of her enchanting dress to Miss Barbara. You looked — please forgive the unhappy phrase — positively murderous. Was it not the memory of this that led you to conceal your subsequent quarrel with Questing? It seems to me you had quite a lot to agitate you when Questing was killed.”
“I have explained to the point of hysteria that I was anxious to avoid publicity. Good God, who ever committed murder for such a motive? Sergeant Webley, I beg that you — ”
“I quite agree,” said Falls. “Who ever did? May I pass on, for the moment, to another of our suspects? Mr. Smith.”
“Here, you lay off Bert!” shouted Simon. “He’s right out of this. He’d got his agreement.”
“His motive,” Mr. Falls continued precisely, “appears at first to be revenge. Revenge for an attempt on his life.”
“Revenge, my foot. They buried the hatchet.”
“In order to resurrect a much more valuable one in the form of Rewi’s adze. Yes, yes, I agree that the revenge motive breaks down but it does well enough for a red herring. Dr. Ackrington: your motive, at first, would seem to be a kind of quintessence of fury. You believed Questing to be a traitor and you could find little support in your efforts to bring him to book.”
“It’s perfectly obvious to me now, Falls, that the man was done to death by someone from the native settlement. No doubt some wretched youth in the pay of the enemy.”
“Ah! The Maori theme. Shall we leave that for the moment? Now, in your case, Colonel, the motive is much more credible. Forgive me for introducing a painful theme but your position was, I’m afraid, only too clear. Questing’s extraordinary assumption of proprietorship alone would have betrayed it. He was, as Mr. Bell remarked a little while ago, a keen man of business. Have you not benefited greatly by his death…”
“Cut that out!” Simon cried out angrily. “You damn’ well lay off my father.”
“Be quiet, Simon,” said the Colonel.
“… as indeed,” Mr. Falls completed his sentence, “have all the members of your family?” He looked at his hands, lightly clasped on the table. “The Maori element,” he said, and paused. “Revenge for the violation of a sacred object? Not an inconsiderable motive. To my mind, a perfectly credible motive. But did anybody beside Mr. Gaunt, outside the Old Firm, as I feel tempted to call the Smith-Questing-Saul link-up, know of the disappearance of the adze? And beyond that there seems to be a jealousy theme centering round your maid, Colonel. Questing appears to have supplanted the man with the debatable shirt. Eru. Eru Saul.”
“But my dear Falls,” said Dr. Ackrington, “you seem to accept Questing’s letter. Surely, then, the murderer is the spy?”
“Certainly. It is most probable. The point I am leading up to is this. It seems to me that in this case motive should, for the moment, be disregarded. There are too many motives. Let us look instead at circumstances. At fact.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Gaunt said wearily.
“Four apparently inexplicable points have interested me enormously. The railway signal. Eru Saul’s shirt. The pohutukawa trees. The misplaced flag. It seems to me that if an explanation is found that will apply equally to these four parts, then we shall have gone a long way towards solving the whole. These are factual things.”
“How about yourself?” Simon demanded abruptly. “If it comes to facts you look pretty fishy, don’t you?”
“I am coming to myself,” said Mr. Falls modestly. “I look extremely fishy. I have left myself to the last because what I have to say, or part of it, is in the nature of a confession.”
Webley looked up quickly. He moved his chair back a little and shifted the position of his great feet.
“When I left the hall,” said Mr. Falls, “I went immediately into the thermal reserve. I have stated that I saw Questing ahead of me and recognized him by his overcoat. I have also stated that I paused and lit my pipe, that I then heard Questing scream, and that a few moments later Bell came along from the direction of the village. I had no alibi. Later, having insisted that none of us should return to the scene of the crime, I myself returned there. You saw me from the hill, did you not, Bell? I was obliged, by the nature of my errand, to use my torch. I heard you plunging down the hillside and realized that you must have seen me. On my return I informed Colonel Claire and Dr. Ackrington of my visit to the forbidden territory. Later, I believe, they told you I had given, as an excuse, a story that I had heard someone moving about on the other side of the mound. This was untrue. There was nobody there. And now,” Falls continued, “I come to the last episode in my story.” With a swift movement he thrust his hand inside his jacket.
Simon scrambled to his feet with an inarticulate cry.
“Grab him!” he shouted. “Grab him! Quick! Before he takes it! Poison!”
But it was not a phial or deadly capsule that Mr. Falls drew from the inner pocket of his coat, but a strip of semi-transparent yellow substance which he held up before Simon, who was already half-way across the floor.
“You alarm me terribly,” said Mr. Falls. “What on earth are you up to?”
“Sit down, boy,” said Dr. Ackrington, “you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“What the blazes are you gettin‘ at, Sim?” asked his father. “Plungin’ about like that?”
Gaunt laughed hysterically and Simon turned on him.
“All right, laugh! The man stands there and tells you he lied, and you think it’s funny. All along, I’ve said there was something fishy about him.” His face was scarlet. He addressed his father and uncle. “I told you. I told you he tapped out the code signal. It’s there under your noses and you won’t do anything.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Falls. “You noticed my experiment on the verandah, did you? I thought as much. You have what used to be called a speaking countenance, Claire.”
“You admit it was the code signal? You admit it?”
“Certainly. An experiment to test Questing. It had an unfortunate result. He picked up the pipe. Quite innocently, of course, but it conveyed an unhappy impression, not only to you but to someone much more closely interested. His murderer.”
“That’s right,” said Simon. “You.”
“But I see,” Mr. Falls continued urbanely, “that you are looking at this piece of yellow celluloid which I hold in my hand. I cut it off Questing’s sun-screen on his car. Its colour is important. Colour, indeed, plays a significant part in our story. If you look at a red object through this celluloid it becomes a different shade of red, but it is still red. If you look at a green object through it, a similar phenomenon occurs. A blue-green, such as one may see on a railway signal, merely becomes a slightly warmer yellowish green. If Questing said that he mistook the red signal because he saw it through this celluloid, he lied.”